Features
Choose a shooting place and Rayora works out its morning and evening blue hour, golden hour, sunrise and sunset with their directions. How long until the next photo light is shown at the top; the day chart, the sun's direction and the Moon are on the same screen. Everything is calculated on the device.
Key features
- Next photo light
- The nearest blue or golden hour and the time until it starts (or ends); the time and direction of sunrise or sunset. A light strip shows the day's light in order.
- Day chart
- The sun's height through the day; morning and evening blue and golden hour, sunrise and sunset with their directions, solar noon. A time slider moves to any moment of the day; previous and next days, and "Back to today".
- Sun direction and Moon
- A compass with the directions of sunrise, sunset and the sun right now; the sun's height and the length of shadows relative to height. The Moon's phase, illuminated fraction, moonrise and moonset, and the next main phase.
- Calendar
- A month view with new moon, first quarter and full moon and each day's moon illumination; the morning or evening golden hours of the week starting on the selected day. The week can be exported to a calendar (.ics).
- Shooting places
- An offline list of cities (GeoNames), coordinates and "I'm here". Each place's times are shown in its own time zone, and a note can be added (for example, "face west").
- Reminders
- Which light, how long before, today only or every day. In the phone app the notification arrives even when Rayora is closed; in the browser and on the desktop, an alert and a notification are shown while the app is open. Exported to a calendar (.ics), the calendar app reminds you too.
- Light definitions
- The limits of golden and blue hour are set by the sun's height above the horizon (default: golden hour −4° to +6°, blue hour −6° to −4°). Times are calculated for a flat horizon.
- Polar regions
- A sun that never sets or never rises, midnight golden hour, all-day golden hour and days without a blue hour are marked separately.
- Share
- The day card is saved as PNG, plain text or a calendar file and shared with the device's share feature; it does not pass through a FigBell server.
- Night vision and display
- The whole screen turns red so the eyes stay adapted to the dark (R). Time format by language, 24 or 12 hours; directions as letters or degrees.
- Samples
- On first launch, a nearby shooting place (Galata Bridge in Türkiye; elsewhere a city estimated from the time zone), Göreme and Reine (Lofoten) come with notes; samples can be edited or deleted, and "Add sample places again" brings them back.
- Files, backup and offline
- Places and reminders are saved to and opened from a .rayora file; "Back up…" puts all data and settings into a single file. Sun and Moon calculations and the list of cities are built in; no account is needed, and it works offline.
Devices and browsers
- On a desktop, shooting places are on the left, the day in the middle and the sun, Moon and reminders on the right. On a phone and a tablet in portrait, the bottom bar holds Today, Calendar, Places and More; on a tablet in landscape, the sun and Moon sit beside the day chart.
- "I'm here" asks for the device's location permission; without it, the list of cities and coordinates are used.
- In the browser, reminder notifications may not arrive while Rayora is closed; in the phone app they arrive even when the app is closed.
Keyboard shortcuts
⌘ and ⌥ are used on macOS; Ctrl and Alt on Windows and Linux.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 · 2 · 3 | Today · Calendar · Places |
| ← · → | Previous · next day |
| T | Back to today |
| R | Night vision (red) |
| , | Settings |
| Ctrl/⌘ O | Open from file |
| Ctrl/⌘ S | Save places to file |
| Ctrl/⌘ Z · ⇧ Z | Undo · redo |
On a touchscreen, the time slider is dragged with a finger; tapping a day in the calendar opens that day's chart. Buttons are sized for fingers, and menus and dialogs open from the bottom.
Get Rayora
Try it in the browser without installation; for continued use, purchase the version for macOS, Windows or Linux.